Yes but, yes but -- what about all the dangerous alcohol consumption in the US? A comparison with Italy is instructive here. Italy, a country which consumes a vast amount of alcohol, also has the #5 life expectancy in the world (81.37 years),significantly above the US (77.91 years).

This conclusion might also be supported by the fact that Americans are among the least multi-lingual people in the world. Trapped, as it were, in the English langauge.

The most interesting apect here is that US scientists, when confronted with this research, have labeled it "paradoxical" (e.g. the French Paradox and the Japanese Paradox),as if the problem rested in the data, and not in their own ability to intrepret it.